Oslo “outraged” over Iran’s confiscation of Nobel Peace Price medal

In 2003 Dr [Shirin]Ebadi became the first Iranian and first Muslim woman to win the peace prize, which was awarded for her campaign for democracy and human rights. She was abroad during President Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in June and has spent the past five months travelling the world to draw attention to the regime’s alleged electoral fraud and suppression of the opposition. “I am effectively in exile,” she said recently.

Oslo’s Nobel Peace Committee is “outraged”, summoned the Iranian envoy to complain, and plans on making a formal complaint. This is the first time any medal has ever been confiscated it it’s 108 year history.

But medals and prizes are the least of Dr. Ebadi’s worries. Per today’s London Times reporting on an interview with Radio Farda – a US-backed Persian language station – she revealed the Iranian regime has frozen her bank accounts and pension, plus those of her husband (still in Tehran), in addition to confiscating her Peace Prize medal and her Medal of Freedom ring…. all seized on the order of a judge at the Tehran Revolutionary Court. The court has suggested that Dr. Ebadi owes £250,000 in taxes to the regime.

Such a far fetched argument might carry a bit more weight if he attempts at legal appeal were actually heard. Instead, she suggests that no judge dares review her case.

In addition to being denied legal recourse, the Iranian regime’s attempt to silence become more obvious when you consider the extents they have gone for such “crimes” they label as tax evasion.

It has closed her Centre for the Defence of Human Rights in Tehran and locked up three of her colleagues. She has been denounced in the state-controlled media and charged in absentia with conspiring against the State. Her husband was badly beaten this autumn and her apartment is said to have been seized.

In an interview with The Times in September Dr Ebadi said that the Intelligence Ministry had repeatedly interrogated her husband and brother, ordered them to shut her up and told them that it could track her down anywhere in the world. “In effect they have threatened me with death,” she said.

Yes, Oslo may be incensed, but a medal can be replaced. The larger tragedy is the concerted effort of Ahmadinejad’s to silence her dissenting voice, and using brutal and personally intrusive methods to accomplish this. And kudos go to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry who did not stop at their strong criticism for the award alone, but extended their outrage to the treatment of both Dr. Ebadi and her husband.

As a noted activist and rights movement leader, the Ebadi’s may take extreme pressure, but they also enjoy the public eye for the regime’s assaults on their basic human rights. Not so for the mere citizens of Iran. Even with them rising in numbers during the election protests, the US POTUS did little to throw them a life raft or encouragement.

To compound an int’l apathy, the western media has found other stories to fill their airtime, the demonstrations in the streets of Iran resumed Nov 4th with Iranian police deploying tear gas and making arrests. [See link for timeline updates and multiple YouTube videos] Former President Mohammad Khatami continues his criticism as well.

Despite the US POTUS olive branch offers and the world still resting hopes on talks of diplomacy, the Iranian regime only becomes more emboldened and aggressive. It will be an odd thing indeed if the illegal theft of a peace prize medal is the tipping point, finally removing the veil of naiveté from the eyes of a complacent international community.

Better than nothing, I guess.